Time for a sea change, Mr Brumby

May 2 2003

The Treasurer's obsession with a surplus will again be on display in Tuesday's budget. He should lift his sights, writes David Hayward.

If next Tuesday goes as scripted, Victorian Treasurer John Brumby will deliver a budget full of tough lines. We'll hear about a conspiracy of events that have left the Bracks Government with no choice but to cut and privatise in order to deliver election promises.

We'll hear grim news about falling stockmarkets putting a super hole in the budget. We can expect at least an extra $35 million or so for education and $200 million for health and community services. But these are modest amounts that were promised at last year's election and most of it is not new money but cash set aside as part of the Government's budget planning.

Expect to hear on Tuesday about various programs that will be discontinued to make way for some other initiatives, as well as confirmation that the unexpected costs of privatised railways have forced the Government to privatise another road.

At the end of it, Brumby will tell us how the pain of the next year will be necessary in order to keep us in the black. He'll say that an operating surplus is a feat of which we can be proud, for it is one that most other governments around the country, even the world, have been unable to manage in these most difficult of times.

He'll paint this as a great achievement, but we'll be entitled to ask: if so few other governments are keen to keep things in the black, why do we in Victoria have this fixation?");document.write("

advertisement

");
}
}
// -->

If good old George Bush can offer a bucket of tax cuts even though a war and a recession has thrown his budget deeply into the red, why can't we do something more daring and constructive other than continue to save rather than invest, especially when interest rates are so low? If Peter Beattie can happily run three deficits on the trot, why are we petrified about doing it once? And why focus so single-mindedly on the toughest measure of the budget bottom line, when there are at least two other measures that could be used that would show things to be so much better?

These would be good questions to throw Steve Bracks's way, because they go to the heart of a tension that's been evident right from the start of his show.

It's surely no coincidence that Labor was elected to office just at that moment when SeaChange was one of the most popular shows on the telly. Set in the sleepy seaside town of Pearl Bay, this was about the triumph of neighbourhood over the market, of social relationships over the wallet, of how it was possible to put commercial interests in second place while building and maintaining a happy community.

The character who most personified this was Bob Jelly, the local estate agent and mayor, who was always trying to find a way to make a buck, even if it meant trying to privatise the local bridge or develop some dodgy new public/private partnership. Inevitably the locals would find out and persuade him there was a better way and Jelly would relent, seemingly relieved that while he might have lost some cash he'd managed to keep his social capital.

The problem with the Bracks Government is that while it has an excellent Bob Jelly, it so far has suffered from the lack of other characters who are prepared to put the other view, to give balance where there is at present too little.

Labor needs a Laura, who can show how it's possible to be professional without hanging around at the top end of town. Labor needs a Diver Dan, someone who can run a business but only as an aside to more pressing social challenges. It needs a Max, who can marshal broad support for the best of social causes, even if sometimes they're a bit soppy.

All this would help give this Government a flavour that would set it apart from what has gone before. Of course, these are early days in the Government's second term and Labor strategists' eyes are firmly planted on ratings for episodes that are being planned for two or three years down the track rather than next week. A broken promise from last week, a budget cut from next Tuesday, must be weighed up in this light.

So expect next week's budget to confirm that Victoria is yet to see a SeaChange, that things have stayed more like the Dallas that was there before, albeit with softer lines and more affable characters than those who starred in the earlier series.

There are those who will point to the last election as evidence that this show can also be popular and they'll ask: What's the problem? But those who run this line miss the point, for let's face it, back then the viewers had precious little from which to choose.

And what's interesting is that Opposition Leader Robert Doyle has gone public with his intention to force on the Liberals his own SeaChange, with a view to persuading Victorians at the next election that it's not just time to change the characters but also the show.

Dr David Hayward is director of the Institute for Social Research at Swinburne University of Technology.